An overweight street cat named Gacek has become so popular among tourists in the Polish city of Szczecin that he has been given a separate tag on Google Maps marked as a “landmark,” according to Oddity Central.
“A black and white overweight street cat living in the Polish city of Szczecin received a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars based on thousands of reviews on Google search engine and became the most popular tourist attraction in the city. Gacek also got a separate mark on Google Maps,” the portal writes.
As the publication specifies, Gacek has almost 2.6 thousand reviews on Google, more than any other attraction in Szczecin.
As the portal notes, Szczecin is a medieval city in northwestern Poland, where many tourists come to visit the Pomeranian Duke’s Castle and Jan Kasprowicz Park.
“However, all these sights pale in comparison to Gacek, who is also called a cat in a tuxedo because of his coloring. He first became publicly known in 2020 when a local news portal showed the cat in a video that went viral on social media,” writes Oddity Central.
According to a local resident, Gacek first appeared on Kaszubska Street in downtown Szczecin about 10 years ago. The locals liked him, many of whom fed him, so he soon turned from a skinny Gacek into a charming fatty.
Transportation of grains and oilseeds from Ukraine to Poland by rail in 2022 increased by 27 times compared to 2021, Rafal Weber, state secretary of Polish Ministry of Infrastructure, said at the International Conference on Transport Development at European level without specifying the absolute figure.
At the same time, Mustafa Nayem, head of Ukraine’s State Agency for Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Development, who attended the conference, noted that new logistics routes may have emerged over that period.
“The activity of Central European countries was decisive in the first weeks and months of the war, so that new logistic routes could have appeared,” his words were quoted by the press service of the Polish ministry on the website of the department.
Nayem stressed that the situation with the growth of traffic requires mobilization from the Polish side and further integration of transport systems of Ukraine and the EU.
Further intensification of trade flows puts Poland before the need to increase the transshipment capacity of port infrastructure, the capacity of which until recently has been a deterrent to the growth of grain shipments from Ukraine, the conference participants noted.
“Ports have to be too big to handle growing cargo flows. The Port of Gdansk is currently reaching its maximum transshipment capacity. We have to anticipate what will happen and prepare more berths,” Lukasz Greinke, director of the Port of Gdańsk, said at the conference.
Last year Poland’s largest seaports, Gdansk, Gdynia and Szczecin-Swinoujscie, handled a total of more than 133 million tons of cargo, a record, said Grzegorz Witkowski, deputy minister of infrastructure of the Republic of Poland.
He stressed that the Polish government will continue to implement ambitious projects in Polish ports, so that they can meet the challenges associated with the inclusion of the transport corridor “Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Aegean Sea” in the main Trans-European transport network TEN-T.
Exit and entry movement for vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tons without cargo will be opened from February 13 at the planned “Nijankovychi-Malhovice” checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Polish border, the Western Regional Department of the State Border Service reports on Facebook.
“From 8 a.m. on February 13 … will begin the implementation of the passage operations of cargo vehicles with a maximum weight of more than 7.5 tons, without cargo. The passage of trucks will be carried out around the clock in the direction of departure from Ukraine and on the entrance”, – said the officer of the press service of the Lviv border detachment Oleksandra Kuchkovskaya.
The new checkpoint is expected to unload the existing checkpoints on the border with Poland and speed up cargo and passenger logistics at the border. The point also provides for the movement of cars and the possibility of crossing for pedestrians.
As reported, the project of the mentioned crossing has been frozen since 2007. Work on its development intensified after a full-scale invasion by Russia, when the need to expand the capacity of existing border crossing points and the construction of new ones came to the fore. The construction of the Nijankovichi-Malhowice border crossing point was completed in cooperation with the Polish side under the Open Border project and became possible after the completion of the Nijankovich-Drohobych-Stryj road section, which leads to the border crossing point.
A total of 7 checkpoints for cars operate on the border with Poland: Dorohusk-Yagodin, Hrebenne-Rava-Russkaya, Korcheva-Krakivets, Kroszenko-Smilnytsia, Medyka-Sheginy. Points Zosin-Ustilug and Budomir-Hrushev are designed for crossing by vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tons.
Poland has expanded the use of Ukrainian documents authorizing participation in road traffic. Thus, a driving license issued in Ukraine is considered valid in Poland until December 31, 2023, even if such a license has expired, the Ministry for the reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine reports.
“This became possible after the introduction of amendments to the law “On assistance to citizens of Ukraine in connection with the armed conflict on the territory of this state.” The new norms were adopted in the Republic of Poland on January 13, 2023″, – is indicated in the message of the press service of the Ministry in the telegram channel.
It is also noted that all citizens who have entered the territory of Poland by cars with registration plates of Ukraine and have a certificate of registration of a vehicle, issued in Ukraine, may move freely on the territory of Poland until December 31, 2023 without going to Ukraine.
This applies to all citizens of Ukraine who are legally on the territory of Poland, including those who were on the territory of Poland until February 24, 2022.
Travel through three checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish border may be complicated due to protests on February 2-3, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine has said.
“On February 2 and 3, 2023 on the access roads to the checkpoints “Korchova – Krakivets”, “Medika – Shehyni” and on February 2, 2023 on the access road to the checkpoint “Hrebenne – Rava-Russkaya” from the Polish side, protests are planned, which may affect the movement of vehicles crossing the state border. Please consider this information in order to properly plan your trips”, – reported in Telegram-channel of the State Border Service.
The border service does not report on the exact location of the protests and the demands of the protesters.
Source: https://t.me/DPSUkr/9345
Kernel, one of Ukraine’s largest agro-industrial groups, has started direct purchases of nitrogen fertilizer Anvistar from Polish producer Anwil S.A. of PKN Orlen Group as part of early preparations for the next agricultural season.
As the holding said on Facebook Wednesday, the fertilizer was delivered by truck and transferred to rail cars at the Polish-Ukrainian border, and the cargo is already on its way by rail to Kernel’s warehouses.
“We are purposefully expanding our network of partners, diversifying risks and experiencing a new quality of agribusiness products. I am sure that this was only the first step on the way to future partnership,” the holding quotes Igor Stelmashchuk, head of its Agribusiness commercial division, as saying.
As reported, Ukraine’s largest producer of fertilizers Ostchem of nitrogen holding Group DF Dmytro Firtash in 2022 reduced production by 66.9% in 2021 – to 1.754 million tons.
Among the main reasons for the reduction of production by Group DF was the loss of control over Severodonetsk Azot (Donetsk region), which managed to produce 0.05 million tons of nitrogen fertilizers until February 27, 2022.
In addition, the production cuts were caused by the destruction of logistics and distribution chains, reduced exports due to regulatory and logistical constraints, power outages due to the mass destruction of energy infrastructure, high gas prices, as well as a drop in solvent demand from farmers by at least 40%.
According to Group DF estimates, the fertilizer market in 2022 decreased by 45-50% – from 4.75 million tons to 2-2.9 million tons.
PKN Orlen has a dominant share in the oil products markets of Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states.
“Before the war Kernel ranked first in the world in sunflower oil production (about 7% of world production) and its export (about 12%) and was the largest producer and seller of bottled sunflower oil in Ukraine. In addition, the company was involved in other agricultural products cultivation and sales.
The largest co-owner of Kernel, through Namsen Ltd. is Ukrainian businessman Andrei Verevskyi, with a 39.3% stake.
In FY2022 (July-2021 – June-2022), the holding posted net loss of $41 mln against $506 mln net profit in the previous FY. Its revenue decreased by 5% – to $5.332 bln, while EBITDA decreased 3.7 times – to $220 mln.
